I have a theory about She-Hulk. Which was created by a man, right? And at the time in particular I think 95% of comic book readers were men and certainly almost all of the comic book writers were men. So the Hulk was this classic male power fantasy. It’s like, most of the people reading comic books were these people like me who were just these little kids getting the shit kicked out of them every day… And so then they created She-Hulk, right? Who was still smart… I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could fuck if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could fuck.

Actually, She-Hulk was created because Marvel was worried the TV show was going to do it first and own the rights, which is still something of an inauspicious beginning. But, as often happens, the creators took a corporate mandate and treated it as a serious creative assignment. She-Hulk grew beyond the simple "Hulk, but a lady" premise pretty much immediately.

Oh, and she's also the Hulk's cousin, so no I don't think they intended for her to fuck the Hulk (Mark Millar's Old Man Logan notwithstanding). Stan Lee points this out:

Never for an instant did I want her as a love interest for Hulk. Only a nut would even think of that.

So why should we give a fuck what Goyer has to say? Chris Sims gives a pretty good explanation -- viz, that Goyer is possibly the guy most responsible for public perception of superheroes over the past 20 years. We can't just dismiss him like a forum troll; Warner's superhero output is in the hands of a guy who really doesn't seem to like superheroes very much and I think that's a problem. (And yeah, I liked Blade and Dark Knight as much as the next guy. But my opinion of Man of Steel is roughly on par with Sims's.) Not to put too fine a point on it, this is the guy who's writing Wonder Woman's first film appearance.

Yeah, She-Hulk really exemplifies the reason I like comic books on an intellectual level so much. She began life as a lame knock-off of The Hulk, except with boobs, but then one good writer got a hold of her and reinvented her and now we have this fun and interesting character, a super-powered lady lawyer who fights space crime on the side. And for a writer whose biggest claims to fame are writing for a character whose entire existence has been over decades carved out by the very process I just described and also reinventing a lame character that no one had ever heard of before, to shit all over somebody else's creations and hard work strikes me as very... lacking in self-reflection.

Her current ongoing is really good, by the way. It's about how she's a lawyer that persons with specialized, often cape related problems can trust to both litigate for them, and also fend off giant robots.

There was awhile there where she was also Jen's uninhibited side, in sort of the way Hulk is much of what Banner represses, and in her case it was quite a lot of sex, so I can see how some more modern readers might get the impression that Shulk is a slut. I never felt it was gratuitous though, it's just Jen is kind of shy and mousy, and the Hulk side of people is generally meant to be what they're not. It's also why she tends to stay in Shulk form while a lawyer, because she's much more confident and assertive that way.

I think Goyer's comments are very simply explained. He wants, or wanted, to fuck She-Hulk, which is not entirely unreasonable as a fantasy, and he's projecting his adolescent fantasy on the character.

Bal wrote:I think Goyer's comments are very simply explained. He wants, or wanted, to fuck She-Hulk, which is not entirely unreasonable as a fantasy, and he's projecting his adolescent fantasy on the character.

Sure, and anybody who's spent any length of time in a discussion about comics has run into stuff like that.

It's just, y'know, this is the guy who's writing Wonder Woman's first film appearance, so it's more of a problem coming from him than if it were just some random guy.

Honestly, I've never thought much of Wonder Woman as a character in her own book, and you don't need to do any projecting at all to get weird sex shit in to her origin if you want to, so I'm not really convinced he could do all that much damage. People think they want WW more than I think they actually do, because she's one of the big three, and they don't know much else about her. My hope is he just apes the current Azzarello run, because it's pretty much the only solo WW stuff I've ever really enjoyed month over month.

See I'm interpreting all this as just plain cynicism towards the comic books industry ("They made She-Hulk so Hulk could have a fuck interest"), and it's telling that he mostly got it wrong by not being cynical enough ("They made She-Hulk so they could sit on the copyright.") I agree that it is problematic that this dude thinks of the comic book industry that way, but the problems here seem to run more along the lines of "The comic books industry has given him that impression" and "Goyer doesn't give enough of a damn to question it."

Which is to say, yes, Wonder Woman is probably going to be an outright bondage fanatic as per what he believes the fans want, as opposed to a low-key bondage fanatic.

Bal wrote:Honestly, I've never thought much of Wonder Woman as a character in her own book, and you don't need to do any projecting at all to get weird sex shit in to her origin if you want to, so I'm not really convinced he could do all that much damage. People think they want WW more than I think they actually do, because she's one of the big three, and they don't know much else about her. My hope is he just apes the current Azzarello run, because it's pretty much the only solo WW stuff I've ever really enjoyed month over month.

This is a guy who actively avoided using words like "Batmobile" and "Catwoman" and who wrote a script where Superman whines for two hours and then executes a guy. I think his disdain for the superhero genre goes deeper than just cynicism about how the industry operates.

Bal wrote:Honestly, I've never thought much of Wonder Woman as a character in her own book, and you don't need to do any projecting at all to get weird sex coconut in to her origin if you want to, so I'm not really convinced he could do all that much damage. People think they want WW more than I think they actually do, because she's one of the big three, and they don't know much else about her. My hope is he just apes the current Azzarello run, because it's pretty much the only solo WW stuff I've ever really enjoyed month over month.

Wait... Brian Azzarello is writing WW?

Tell me more.

Yes, Azzarello's been writing Wonder Woman for the past two years or so. From what I hear, she fights a lot of supernatural threats a la Hellboy.

I like the new costume! Bright, undetailed comic-book designs work fine in bright, undetailed comic books, where it fits the style, but if you just dump those designs into real life, they look cartoony and cheap. That's all well and good if you want your superhero movie to be goofy, but there's a difference between staying true to the fun comic-bookyness of the original work, and slavishly keeping to elements that only work in a completely different medium.

I mean, if they did Captain America's coloration just as bright as it was in the comics, he'd look like an idiot.

Bal wrote:Honestly, I've never thought much of Wonder Woman as a character in her own book, and you don't need to do any projecting at all to get weird sex coconut in to her origin if you want to, so I'm not really convinced he could do all that much damage. People think they want WW more than I think they actually do, because she's one of the big three, and they don't know much else about her. My hope is he just apes the current Azzarello run, because it's pretty much the only solo WW stuff I've ever really enjoyed month over month.

Wait... Brian Azzarello is writing WW?

Tell me more.

Yes, Azzarello's been writing Wonder Woman for the past two years or so. From what I hear, she fights a lot of supernatural threats a la Hellboy.

It's all about Olympian politics and the various children of Zeus. Pretty fucking awesome. He's been on the book since nu52 started, and is set to end his run fairly soon, iirc, so this arc should be coming to a close soon-ish. It's been very good throughout.

Now it's kind of hilarious to say one has 'missed the character' of Jonn Jonnz (who is pretty much a holdover from the 50s comics where personality was overrated and all you needed was a crazy costume, an assortment of grab-bag powers, and something to quip as you punched hoodlums in the face) but it is telling. You can go pretty far in comics by hating them (Garth Ennis, Mark Millar) but at some point you have to put something there instead. I mean, "homicide detective that is an alien but never tells anyone or does anything supernatural" is not quite interesting in any level.

I mean, if Goyer writes Wonder Woman, she'll be called just "Woman" and be a secret agent that shoots people and maybe meets Batman.